to scream:
I’M NOT IN MAGAZINES. I’M NOT ON TELEVISION. I NEVER WILL BE UNTIL I’M A FAT FUCKING LOSER BEING HUMILIATED BY SOME FAT LOSER HUSBAND ON REALITY TV, FOR THE GAWPING AMUSEMENT OF OTHER FAT LOSERS JUST LIKE ME. IS THAT YOUR ‘FEMINISM’? IS THAT IT? CAUSE THAT’S THE FUCKING BEST-CASE SCENARIO FOR ME AND COUNTLESS OTHERS UNLESS WE TAKE REAL CONTROL.
But instead I compose myself and tell her: — I would feel great because at least I would have been there. At least I would have achieved something. That’s what it’s all about. I want to be up there. I want to act, sing and dance. Me. I want them to see that I lived. Nikki Fuller-Smith fucking well lived.
Lauren’s looking at me with great concern, like a mother does to a kid who says ‘I don’t feel like going to school today . . .’ — But you do live . . .
But I’m ranting now, spouting stupid nonsense, yet of the type within which the real truth must always lie. — And after doing stag films, I want to do real porn, then I want to produce or direct. To be the one in control. Me. A woman. And I’ll tell you this right now, the only industry in the world where you have that control to any meaningful extent is pornography.
— Bullshit, Lauren shakes her head.
— No bullshit, I tell her firmly. What does she know about pornography? She’s watched none, she’s never studied the production of it, never been a sex worker, never even visited a pornographic website. — You don’t understand, I tell her.
Picking up the skins and baccy, Lauren puts them back on the table. — You’re sounding like somebody else. Probably that mate of Rab’s, she pouts.
— Don’t be stupid. And if it’s Terry you’re on about, I haven’t even shagged him yet, I tell her, feeling bad at disclosing this.
— Yet being the operative word.
— I don’t know if I will. I don’t even fancy him, I snap testily. I talk too much. Lauren knows everything about me, almost everything about me, and I know nothing about her. She does have secrets, and I hope for her sake that they’re interesting ones. Looking sorrowfully at me, the tone of her voice changes. — I don’t know why you feel so bad about yourself, Nikki. You’re the best-looking girl . . . woman I’ve ever met.
— Huh, try telling that to the guy I’ve just made a fool of myself over, I spit, but I’m starting to feel great inside. My response to flattery: I sneer, but I feel that nauseating lift in the muscles in my face, involuntary, controlling me, and then the rush in my stomach which spreads to the extremities of my arms and legs. I’m a sucker for it.
— Who was that, Lauren nearly squeaks, worried, touching the frames of her glasses.
— Oh, just a guy, you know how it is, I smile knowing too fucking well that she doesn’t and she’s about to say something else when we hear Dianne’s key turn in the lock.
12
Czars and Huns
T he group has become the soup, man. It’s now the main nourishment ay the social kind that the boy Murphy gits. Lying in the kip wi Ali, feeling her recoil when ah touch her, it’s bad, man, pure bad. Mind you, ah suppose she’s jist gittin her ain back, fir aw the times ah’ve lain thaire, too junked tae make love, jist starin at the ceilin, or twisted up intae a foetal baw, saturatin the kip wi sweat as the horror ay withdrawal stepped forward. Now it’s usually me lyin like a surfboard in the bed; wired head racin, no really able tae go tae sleep until she’s taken the wee boy oot tae school.
Been leadin different lives they past few weeks, man. When did it aw start? Monny’s perty? Funny, it eywis begins as a wee session, then spills intae a week, then ye realise that yir lives are pure, like, same space, but parallel universes for, like, yonks. So it’s the group for me, makin an effort, likes, for Ali n the wee man’s sakes, ken?
Eftir coffee Avril gits us thegither again. Ah dinnae really like this room, it’s in an auld school
I’M NOT IN MAGAZINES. I’M NOT ON TELEVISION. I NEVER WILL BE UNTIL I’M A FAT FUCKING LOSER BEING HUMILIATED BY SOME FAT LOSER HUSBAND ON REALITY TV, FOR THE GAWPING AMUSEMENT OF OTHER FAT LOSERS JUST LIKE ME. IS THAT YOUR ‘FEMINISM’? IS THAT IT? CAUSE THAT’S THE FUCKING BEST-CASE SCENARIO FOR ME AND COUNTLESS OTHERS UNLESS WE TAKE REAL CONTROL.
But instead I compose myself and tell her: — I would feel great because at least I would have been there. At least I would have achieved something. That’s what it’s all about. I want to be up there. I want to act, sing and dance. Me. I want them to see that I lived. Nikki Fuller-Smith fucking well lived.
Lauren’s looking at me with great concern, like a mother does to a kid who says ‘I don’t feel like going to school today . . .’ — But you do live . . .
But I’m ranting now, spouting stupid nonsense, yet of the type within which the real truth must always lie. — And after doing stag films, I want to do real porn, then I want to produce or direct. To be the one in control. Me. A woman. And I’ll tell you this right now, the only industry in the world where you have that control to any meaningful extent is pornography.
— Bullshit, Lauren shakes her head.
— No bullshit, I tell her firmly. What does she know about pornography? She’s watched none, she’s never studied the production of it, never been a sex worker, never even visited a pornographic website. — You don’t understand, I tell her.
Picking up the skins and baccy, Lauren puts them back on the table. — You’re sounding like somebody else. Probably that mate of Rab’s, she pouts.
— Don’t be stupid. And if it’s Terry you’re on about, I haven’t even shagged him yet, I tell her, feeling bad at disclosing this.
— Yet being the operative word.
— I don’t know if I will. I don’t even fancy him, I snap testily. I talk too much. Lauren knows everything about me, almost everything about me, and I know nothing about her. She does have secrets, and I hope for her sake that they’re interesting ones. Looking sorrowfully at me, the tone of her voice changes. — I don’t know why you feel so bad about yourself, Nikki. You’re the best-looking girl . . . woman I’ve ever met.
— Huh, try telling that to the guy I’ve just made a fool of myself over, I spit, but I’m starting to feel great inside. My response to flattery: I sneer, but I feel that nauseating lift in the muscles in my face, involuntary, controlling me, and then the rush in my stomach which spreads to the extremities of my arms and legs. I’m a sucker for it.
— Who was that, Lauren nearly squeaks, worried, touching the frames of her glasses.
— Oh, just a guy, you know how it is, I smile knowing too fucking well that she doesn’t and she’s about to say something else when we hear Dianne’s key turn in the lock.
12
Czars and Huns
T he group has become the soup, man. It’s now the main nourishment ay the social kind that the boy Murphy gits. Lying in the kip wi Ali, feeling her recoil when ah touch her, it’s bad, man, pure bad. Mind you, ah suppose she’s jist gittin her ain back, fir aw the times ah’ve lain thaire, too junked tae make love, jist starin at the ceilin, or twisted up intae a foetal baw, saturatin the kip wi sweat as the horror ay withdrawal stepped forward. Now it’s usually me lyin like a surfboard in the bed; wired head racin, no really able tae go tae sleep until she’s taken the wee boy oot tae school.
Been leadin different lives they past few weeks, man. When did it aw start? Monny’s perty? Funny, it eywis begins as a wee session, then spills intae a week, then ye realise that yir lives are pure, like, same space, but parallel universes for, like, yonks. So it’s the group for me, makin an effort, likes, for Ali n the wee man’s sakes, ken?
Eftir coffee Avril gits us thegither again. Ah dinnae really like this room, it’s in an auld school
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